Emperor Hiruhito examining a slit shell (Pleurotomaria) Professor Hidemi Sato, Lhui>er.s/ty of Pennsylvania, are 

 in the office of P.M. Bayer on the third floor of the west between them. This photograph appeared in Smithsonian 



wing. The late Joseph Rosewater, curator of mollusks, and Year 1976. 



the end of fiscal year 1924 being 5,157,694; fiscal year 

 1984 alone drew almost a million more than that. In 

 the early days of the Smithsonian there was a surge of 

 visitors every four years as crowds came to Washington 

 for the presidential inaugurals, but by 1910 this phe- 

 nomenon was no longer evident in the annual atten- 

 dance figures. Clearly transportation was improving so 

 that people could vacation any year. By the late 1920s 

 the miracle of radio permitted people to hear the po- 

 litical speeches without making a trip. 



By the end of fiscal year 1933, 10,504,483 visitors 

 had been counted since the building opened. I he pub- 

 lic hours continued to be 9 a.m. to 4:30 P.M. Since most 

 of the staff arrived by 8:45 a.m., a few guards acciden- 

 tally counted staff members who came in after 9, but 

 by then the number of visitors annually was so large 



that the minuscule staff would not have added signif- 

 icantly to the total, even if every one had been counted 

 every day. By the close of fiscal year 1935, as the twenty- 

 fifth anniversary year began, a total of 1 1,618,576 peo- 

 ple had come through the doors. The small annual 

 attendance figures for 1934 and 1935 reflect the Great 

 Depression. 



At the close of fiscal year 1955, 25,620,085 tourists 

 in all had entered the building since it opened. In the 

 annual figures one sees the dramatic impact of World 

 War II in reducing attendance, and the gradual postwar 

 rise to prewar levels. Fiscal year 1956 marked the first 

 time the building had received a million visitors in a 

 year. After fifty years, at the close of fiscal year 1960, 

 a total of 33,365,970 visitors had been logged, a three- 

 fold increase over the first cjuarter-centiuy. 



The Visitors 



173 



